


it's got sights to give you shivers

by kitnkabootle



Category: Mum (TV 2016)
Genre: BBC, F/M, Lesley Manville, Robert Mullen, Series, mum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 17:51:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle
Summary: Michael accidentally stumbles in on Cathy having a private moment alone and unexpected things occur.





	it's got sights to give you shivers

“Oh hi Michael, you’re early aren’t you?” Kelly lets Michael into the house after the third time he’s knocked, “Cathy’s upstairs.”

“We’re just headed out for dinner and the cinema,” she says around a mouthful of crisps, crumpling the bag up and discarding it upon the entryway table as she shrugs into her coat.

“Okay.“

“Jason says we’re going to get the very biggest popcorn they have, this time. They have that plasticy sort of butter there too. Do you like the plasticy sort of butter Michael?”

Michael hasn’t thought enough about cinema popcorn in his life to have an opinion but he nods and smiles, “I —“

“Yeah,” Kelly interrupts, fastening the last button on her coat just as Jason joins them, eating a square of toast. He dusts the crumbs off his shirt on to the floor and smiles, “Hi Michael, need me to sort the telly for you before we go?”

“That’s alright mate, I think between the two of us we can manage.”

“We caen manage,” Jason does his impersonation of a Scotsman, in the same awkwardly unfunny way that he usually does, and Michael fakes the same polite laugh that he usually does in response.

A car pulls up in the drive and Jason sidesteps Kelly, going out to greet Debs and Ryan.

“Will you tell Cathy that we’re off?” Kelly asks as she follows Jason outside.

“Yeah yeah of course. Have a good time.” Michael says but it falls on deaf ears as the pair are already climbing in to the back of the car with obnoxious music vibrating the windows. 

Once they’ve gone and he has closed the door behind them, he decides he’ll nip up to the bathroom before waiting for Cathy to join him downstairs.

He is just arriving on the upstairs landing when he hears a faint noise from Cathy’s closed bedroom door. It sounds a little like a sob, and he feels his neck prickle at the thought that Cathy is upset. Over the years since they have lost Dave, he has seen her ebb through the rollercoaster of emotions that come with grief. He’s missed his friend too and many times he’s blinked back his own tears when he and Cathy have talked through the memories. But the tears come less and less these days with the passing of time. Still for Cathy, he imagines it will continue to be a creeping surprise, that loss, and it can’t be slotted into one’s schedule for convenience.

He glances towards the bathroom then back, contemplating the appropriate thing to do in the situation but his curiosity and concern get the better of him. He approaches her bedroom and listens for the noise again but it has vanished. He so wants to be there for her, in any capacity she needs, but he also walks the fine line of giving her the space that she needs. He’s about to head back towards the bathroom when he hears it again, but this time the noise is discernible, a catch of breath and a whimper.

It doesn’t sound like grief. He’s immediately concerned, immediately thinks the worst. Was she sick? In pain? Why hadn’t Kelly said anything? Why hadn’t anyone told him?

It’s this thought process coupled with the faintest, strained sound of “Michael,” that swallows the second-guessing and makes his hand turn the knob, propelling him forward.

“Cathy?” He calls out her name as he bursts into the room, looking for her and startles when he finds her laying on her bed.

“Michael!”

She gasps and sits up quickly and Michael catches a glimpse of her bare thigh as she hurriedly pushes the hems of her skirt down. 

He immediately looks away, down to the floor where he notices a bunched up pair of black stockings and what looks to be a pair of —

“What are you doing in here?”

“I’m sorry, I heard you and I thought you were— that something was wrong,“ he can’t look at her and wishes he could bite down on a cyanide pill and end it all rather than face the embarrassment.

Cathy is breathless and it is the only sound, save for a quiet buzzing, that he can hear as he continues to stare down at the floor.

“Okay,” she says finally, “I— I’m alright.”

“Good!” He’s a little over-enthusiastic perhaps, “I’ll just—“

He heads to the door quickly but his foot rolls over something and he stumbles. He scrambles to pick up the object, to cover the embarrassment of the trip, and only when he feels it buzzing in his hand does he realize what it is. When he looks from the object to Cathy, he sees her own cheeks are flame red and she looks horrified.

“Michael!”

“I’m sorry,” he says, the small vibrator still buzzing in his fingers as he caries it to the nightstand like it’s burning his hands. It falls from his fingers and clatters against the wood and a tissue box and the quiet buzzing sounds suddenly like a drill on pavement.

“Oh Jesus, Cathy, oh Christ I’m so sorry — I uhh,” he picks it up again and Cathy is up off the bed and reaching for it so fast that he drops it into her hands. She switches it off and the buzzing stops but Michael knows he won’t forget the sound anytime soon.

“I think I’ll just —“ he rushes towards the door and once he’s stepped outside of it he shuts it behind him. He has no idea what to do. He’s just walked in on an incredibly private moment, something he’s definitely thought of many times before in fantasy, but nothing he’d ever admit to. He’d never imagined how completely mortifying it would be in practice. Does he make his excuses? Does he show himself out? Will things ever be the same again? Does he send a sympathy card? Flowers? A Victoria sponge? What the fuck is he going to do?

He is halfway down the stairs when Cathy calls his name from the landing. He freezes and looks down for a few minutes to gather what’s left of his spine before finally looking up towards her.

“Cathy, I didn’t — I mean I didn’t see you, I … I didn’t see anything.”

He expects to see disgust on her face but is surprised when he doesn’t. Instead he finds her clear blue eyes looking down at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath her blouse.

“Michael, I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect you to be —“ she forces a smile, “— early.” 

“I know, I know, Kelly let me in before she left. I… I really, I’m so sorry Cathy, I just thought you were hurt. I would never —“

“I know you wouldn’t, no. It’s okay Michael, honestly,” Cathy reassures him gently.

“It’s just when I heard my name —“ 

Just like that the implication of that simple thought spoken aloud surrounds them both with a clarity that neither were fully prepared for.

He looks up at Cathy, again, meets her eyes which have softened with his words. 

“You said my name,” he says, his tone as incredulous sounding as it feels.

“I did,” she confirms. 

They stare at one another a long time and Michael can feel his pulse racing. If she’d said his name, then she’d have been thinking of — when she was —

“I do,” she adds and the tension between them is tangible.

He’s not sure where he finds the courage but his legs carry him back up the rest of the stairs until he is standing next to her.

“You, you mean you were thinking of me when you —“

“Yes,” Cathy answers around an exhale, looking up into his eyes, “of course I do.”

Michael feels like the world is spinning and all he can doto keep tethered to it is to look from her stunning blue eyes to her perfectly oval-shaped mouth. He wants nothing more than to kiss her and it's certainly not the first time he's felt the overwhelming urge. There is no protocol for this situation, however, and he doesn’t want to push Cathy into anything despite her admission that she felt that way about him. If she did think that way about him though, that would change everything. Maybe this whole time she was wait—

“Michael,” she interrupts his thoughts, stepping one foot closer to him. She’s so close that he can feel the heat radiating from her body through her blouse and his t-shirt, “do you think about me like that?”

Michael would like to think he could play the conversation cooly but while he can be quick witted with jokes and comebacks, he’s rather unprepared to have the love of his life ask him if he has ever had sexual thoughts about her as they stand alone in her home.

“Once or twice,” he says, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, “every night for the past thirty or so years.”

Cathy’s lips quirk upwards in a small smile that soon spreads wide across her face. She reaches for his neck and he can feel her slender fingers stroking the nape before their lips meet in a tender kiss.

Michael thinks it’s all he’s ever wanted in his whole life and suddenly it’s coming true. He tries to stay within himself, tries to commit the experience to memory. Indulges in the way her mouth fits to his, feels her tongue caress his lower lip and opens his mouth to finally taste her.

He can’t help his body’s reaction, and doesn’t realize it himself until their lips part and Cathy laughs softly against his mouth.

“Are you thinking about it now?” She whispers at his skin and he knows she can feel him against her.

“You bet,” he answers, chuckling in response, because there’s nothing left to hide now.

Cathy takes his hand within hers and looks up at him as she draws it towards her thigh, underneath the hem of her skirt. He forces himself to be tentative as he allows his fingers to drift upwards along her soft skin until he reaches the swell of her backside and he realizes she doesn’t have any knickers on. He remembers the discarded ones on the floor earlier.

“Oh Jesus, Cathy,” he says, caressing her so gently it’s as if she could break if he touches too firmly.

“You know, Kelly and Jason won’t be back for hours yet,” she says and the small, teasing smile at her lips evaporates whatever resolve he thought he had left.

His hands lower on her thighs and he lifts her up into his arms so that her feet are off the ground, “Well in that case,” he says, carrying her back towards the bedroom.

 

Cathy laughs against his neck and holds onto his shoulders as he gently lays her on the bed. He lays down beside her and strokes his hand over her hip, still not fully able to comprehend that he is in bed with her. He tries not to think that only a couple of years ago she shared this bed with his best friend. Knows he’s already agonized over that fact enough in the past thirty years.

Cathy seems to intuit what he’s thinking because she sits up looks down at him, “Michael, are sure you… want this?”

Michael smiles up at her, even as he feels a small tear creeping from the edge of his eye and rolling to the blanket beneath him, “there is quite literally nothing I have ever wanted more than you, Cathy.”

It’s the key that both needed to hear spoken aloud. A kind of permission slip decorated with both of their signatures that removes the last of their shared defenses. Michael reaches up and cups Cathy’s cheek in his hand and she straddles his hips, her hands working at the closure of his jeans.

There isn’t a lot of foreplay, or time to explore each other — that will come later. There’s an urgency to this moment, this first time together, that neither seems prepared to wait even a moment longer than is needed.

When he feels himself ease slowly inside of her he can hardly believe any of it is real. Can hardly believe they’ve spoken their truths, can hardly believe that his body is joined with Cathy’s and that she is looking down into his eyes with a love and adoration he’d only ever dreamed of.

They start slow and measured and Cathy uses his hands on her hips and thighs to set the pace. But as they indulge in the fruition of this long anticipated moment, their pace quickens rapidly until they are both gasping and crying out from their release.

They lay together in the afterglow, listening to each other’s heartbeat with neither needing to say anything at all. They’ve talked around this moment for years and now that it’s here it’s as if it was always meant to happen; A natural outcome that they were continuously journeying towards.

Michael strokes Cathy’s hair as she places kisses on his shoulder and they start again, their hands and mouths exploring more of each other as delicately and deliberately as treading on tide-washed sand.

Hours later when they finally put their clothes back on, bodies weak and faces glowing from hours of unreserved passion, they sit together on the sofa, cups of tea warming their hands and sides gently touching.

The front door opens and Jason and Kelly come into the hall with Ryan and Debs, bringing noise and distractions into the previous privacy of the house. They all come around into the living room and Jason points at the TV, “Did you really not get it working after all of this time? You’re hopeless you two.”

Cathy and Michael just look at one another and laugh.


End file.
